The Influence of Social Media Usage on Citizen Participation and Engagement

• In Event: Reaffirming Critical Education's Commitment to the Radicalization of Democracy and the Constitution of Active Citizenship

Abstract

Social media has altered the political, socio-cultural, economic and educational landscapes, impacting on the potential for social change. Our international research project, employing a Freirian theoretical framework, explores the impact of social media on citizen participation. We acknowledge the decreasing salience of normative democracy, based on elections, political parties and elite-based processes that marginalize and diminish critically-engaged citizen participation. Similarly, we are concerned about the neoliberal domination of education, and how this diminishes and obfuscates how youth envisage and engage in social change and social movements. Thus, the focus on social media allows us to tie together democracy, education and citizen participation in a critical and, hopefully, transformative way.

Authors

• Paul R. Carr, Université du Québec en Outaouais

• Michael Hoechsmann, McGill University

• Gina Thesee, University of Quebec, Montreal